Salsa in Holland

I think it was 2 weeks ago (but who’s counting), when I spent a few days in Holland. It was a very exciting experience. I met some amazing people and attended a few salsa parties. Everything just confirmed one of my assumptions: Dutch dancers are really really good and the level of salsa social dancing in Holland is really high! You don’t dance on 1 there and you have regular parties which resemble our festival parties – regarding the show program and entrance fee that is 😉

Let’s see what happened and what we have learned:

Night Nr. 1: If you are an organizer you can repeat your show. But even if, don’t do it! Repeating never works!
The Friday night party somewhere near Utrecht (you can as well kill me, but I won’t remember the name of the place) was full, some good social dancing, nice LIVE music and show program. The Chocolate party was organized by Brian & Mechteld, the most succesfful Dutch couple I dare to say (they always win salsa competitions there). The name chocolate assumed people should wear those colors, the winning costume however, was made out of paper, chocolates are usually wrapped in. On that party Brian & Mechteld premiered a new show, in which they joined with second best Dutch couple. That’s actually really nice to see, that the eternal runner-ups join forces with winners (I have a feeling Slovenian people would not do that so easily). On a negative point, unfortunately, I must say, the show was not the biggest success. Apparently the wigs were in their way, but even after repeating (!!!) the show, the result was not as majestic as their name (they are called The Majestics). There were also some other performances, even guest couple from Sweden. They were kinda cute. 🙂

Night Nr. 2:
Saturday night was a party at Casa Loca. Another huge thing, since I met Charlotte from Berlin and some other festival organizers there, who all just came to party. Maybe by now I should mention this weekend was the weekend when Rotterdam congress took place as well, but somehow, nobody seemed to mind that. People said the best dancers are at Casa Loca – party place with two floors, one salsa and one zouk (gotta learn that thing!). Again the party had good show program, one thing we were all waiting for with the biggest anticipation was the Taiti&Cristel new routine! I was relieved to see that the process of making a show is the same all over the world – anxiety attacks, making costumes in the last hours before the show … It all makes it so much more exciting! 🙂 I must say I really enjoyed their show, plus other shows as well (they started at 2am!! from obvious reasons I guess). Speaking directly from the heart – Holland is crazy! Goooood dancers, amaaaazing shows, … Gotta live and see it. 🙂

Night Nr. 3: Don’t expect a successful congress if there are 5 other events happening at the same time.Hm,.. well OK, let’s at least check the Rotterdam congress, since we’re upthere. 😉 That party was really empty – I was kinda disappointed. Still, I had the best time, cause there was a lot of room to dance and some great dancers – the ones who ENJOY dancing. Can’t help it, I mostly enjoy dancing with people who don’t just perform figures, but feel and interpret the music, who let you do some shines etc. Holland of course has people like that. You can find everything up there.
The congress was hosted by Johnnie Vasquez – no comment needed for that crazy show of course 🙂 , Adolfo&Sheila performed (we saw them later in Rovinj as well), Taiti&Cristel with afro routine and Talal with his solo. Boy, was he surprised to see me there! 😉 🙂 Hehe, … I think I’ve managed to surprise quite a lot of people there with my presence. Though by the end of the weekend I was starting to get annoyed with the “What the hell are you doing here?!” question.

Here’s the salsa party team from that weekend. The rosen star Sergio, rising starlet Ajay, miss Elena, who’ll be performing this weekend in Hamburg (looking fwd to that) and the wannabe star me. 🙂
Other facts on Holland:
– Never leave home without a jacket! The temperatures can vary for 15 or more °C. And it’s always windy!
– Dutch have no idea Slovenia is at current presidency of European Union (but than again, Indian people don’t either :S). Even worse, they ask you what currency does Slovenia have?!
– If you are a museum fan than go there. I loved all 3 I saw in 2 days. 🙂
– Their language is weird though.
– And they tend to talk on the phone A LOT! At some points you might get bored … 😉